The BT Wireplay Diary ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 30th December 1995 Receive February Edition of PC Zone with competition in. 15th January 1996 Send off competition form. 1st / 2nd week of February Receive two telephone calls in one week from a 'Mr. Fox' concerning survey and additional information. 20th of February Phone up BT on 0800 800 883 to ask why the delay? They say they have had problems and will contact me soon. 23rd February Send letter to PC Zone about BT's lack of 'delivering the goods'. Not printed. 28th February Receive card confirming my entrance into the trial. Says software will be coming within March. Addressed to: Mr Woolfson, no 'M.' for 'Marc'. 6th April (posted 15th) Send letter to PC Zone about BT, again. 8th April Receive letter from BT confirming position on the trial (again). Letter still addressed to Mr Woolfson (and thinks that I am the phone bill payer for this household). Letter explains costs - £1.50 an hour. Says software will be with me shortly - does not give date, though... 16th April 'Friend' (Beach) at school says he also received a letter from BT, like mine. 18th April Beach receives his full Wireplay software and information, but has problems with password. No sign of MY software & stuff, though. ~~ 20th April: 7:30 Wireplay software arrives in post. with a thump due to being in a box. 10:00 I read about the services and info. 10:10 Notice that password and nickname are different to those given first. 11:30 Phone Wireplay Technical Line (0345 577 577) and told errors have been going on with nicknames etc. Told will be phoned back. 12:15 Called back by someone else, who I think is a bit 'higher'. He asks for ALL information all over again including nickname, password, name, address etc. Says will call back after information has been put back into the database (by hand). 12:45 Bloke who rang earlier phones to say he has re-entered information and has tested it. It works fine, he says. 15:00 Install Wireplay software on machine. 15:30 Try to change video driver due to 'image_alloc' errors or something. In doing so, manage to corrupt one of the File Allocation Tables. Oh-oh, what have BT done now? 23rd April Dad turns on machine and is OK. Strange but true. No time to try out Wireplay again till weekend, though. 11th May Tried out software for the sake of it and it worked 1st time (but no modem) and so I entered my personal info. 19th May Got new and own modem in machine, but no time to check Wireplay stuff... wait till next week?? 25th May 12:50 AAARRGGHHH!!! I got online!!! It's a miracle! I did my CV etc, and made a proposal (which no-one took up). Try again tomorrow or later to see if I can get a game... 17:15 Eventually got a game of DOOM 2 vs. 'Top Gun'. It was 1 Frag nil (to him), and then he disappeared after losing HIS 1st Frag. Where he went, I don't know. Said he would try Spuddy, though as 'topgun', to get an E-mail address. 26th May Got another game, but machine(s) halted at the 'checking network' bit. 2nd June 15:15 Attempt to log on as usual, but when (eventually) connected, I got a message that user 'Wolf' does not exist. What Now??? 15:30 Send some E-mail to Wireplay to explain what has NOW happened. 16:00 Dad suggests to try 'Wolfy': what I originally wanted. This worked, but my CV was gone, as was tel. number. 16:30 Send BT more mail asking why the name change? 9th June Managed to get a decent game with 'trial' 28.8 modem. It was Doom 2, against 'Junglist'. It was a fairly even match. Also, I got a mail reply from BT saying that I am now in as 'Wolfy' for definite or something. 12th July Ooops, re-read mail and it says to NOT log in as 'Wolfy', but 'Wolf'. It apparently mucks up the system. Never mind... 24th August Receive new version of Wireplay software (twice - due to me logging on as both 'Wolf' and 'Wolfy'...?) - ver 1.5h but cannot connect to the other end. Modem connects, but then error saying "Connection to Wireplay Failed" appears. 27th August Decide to phone the HelpDesk at BT (again) on their Lo-call number. Spoke to someone telling them my problem. They say to try putting the modem speed (in the setup) down to 19600 instead of 57600. I try this, but the error still appears. 28th August Phone the helpdesk again saying that my problem has not been solved. Spoke to 'Lee' AKA 'Mr. Fox' (?) and he tells me to try lots of initialisation strings to see if that is the problem. He asks if modem is BABT approved. I look on modem and find a sticker saying that it IS approved (this took a while to find, and I E-mailed the code next to the BABT icon to Lee as I had already finished my [long] chat with him). He says he has not seen this problem and does not know what to do. He says he will call me back tomorrow (29th) evening. 29th August :-( Never receive phone call from Lee at Wireplay... 30th August I decide to write ANOTHER letter to PC Zone telling them more of my problems to see if they reply this time. :-( Still receive no call from Lee or any word from Wireplay at all. 5th September Lee phones but no-one here. He leaves message on answerphone for me to call him back. When I do call back, he has finished his shift & will be in tomorrow. 6th September Try to contact Lee, but he is "unavailable", and I ask for him to call me when he IS available (maybe Sunday, I am told). 14th September Manage to contact Lee (he answered my call), but he does not remember anything about my 'enquiry'. Says he must have passed the information on to 'Second Line' (any ideas?) who he will contact and get back to me on Monday (16th). I say after 4pm, please. Says he has also deleted ONE of my accounts - which one...? 16th September 11:00 Darren Page (new bloke) phones from Wireplay itself, not the HelpDesk, and of course I am not in - I'm still at school. 16:25 He calls again, and I manage to talk to him, and give just about ALL the information AGAIN. Looks like we're back to square one, but now in a new department. He says he will try to see if there are any things keeping 'wolfy' or 'wolf' out. Will call back in a bit... 16:45 Asks if I am near modem when he calls back. I say no, and connect the portable one to use. 17:05 Get portable phone and begin to get somewhere, but then the portable goes dead. I ask him to try the mobile when he rings back to ask what had happened. 17:15 Get mobile working and I try to connect in HyperTerminal, but this was as dodgy as ever. Mobile suddenly bleeps in my ear, and goes dead, also. 17:25 Home line rings, and I suggest to try mobile again, after plugging it in to the nearby mains socket. 17:30 Mobile rings, and about 5 words said before it goes dead AGAIN. 17:31 End up using the home phone for half an hour, trying various things, such as connecting with my preferred terminal to see if a connection was to be made. This works, and the 'ascend%' prompt gained, but I can't do anything from here!!! We try various initialisation (which Darren couldn't pronounce) strings, and came to the conclusion that THIS was the error. He says he will call back when it is appropriate - Wednesday afternoon. 18:06 I put the phone down and let my Mum use it...! 18th September Darren phones back to say that he could NOT find the modem's manufacturer to find the init. string and asks me to look in manual etc for any phone numbers. There are NONE at all and I say I will ask my dad to phone his supplier to find out the modem's company info. Says will call back tomorrow. 19th September Darren calls again, but my dad hadn't got round to phoning his supplier. Darren gave me his personal E-mail address and I say that I will mail him over the weekend with the results of trying various init. strings, and using my dad's spare modem. Could not find init. string where I was told to look, and new modem has exactly the same error (ther ARE very similar modems). 29nd September E-mail Darren at the 'Boat' department in BT (Boat?), after finding out that he had just mailed me, asking for any progress. I use the 'reply' option. 5th October Find out that the mail had bounced back: the BT server don't like me replying to THAT address, which I notice was different to the address that Darren had given me. I use the 'forward' option to mail to Darren my initial E-mail reply, to the address HE had given me, not the one before. 10th October Receive letter saying that the trial period would end on Friday (11th) at midnight. I don't know whether THIS is good or bad news, but the definitely good news is that all the trialists are being sent a CD copy of EF2000 FREE "for our trouble". Well for all the trouble I have come across, I would like the Top Ten best games, please! 13th October After a long, hard DoE weekend, I read my E-mail, and Darren has contacted me again - it seems as though the mail server was not working the first time I tried or something. Anyway, he asks about my OLD modem information, but I don't give it to him in my reply, as I don't find this worth it, seeing as though the trial period has finished now. 14th October Whilst writing yesterday's part of the diary, I think about the fact that I may get sent 2 copies of EF2000 seeing as BT send me 2 of everything else! Well, that's definitely good news - I could make some profit here... ;-D 5th November Receive whole BT Wireplay 'package' (x2), but the EF2000 thing is just from the PC Gamer cover CD, (which comes free as well) and is the Wireplay Online version only :-C, along with a mouse mat, a £5 Our Price voucher, and a letter explaining the future of Wireplay, as well as the Oscars Research disk to complete. Guess what I put in it??? April 1997 "Where have you been...?" postcard from Wireplay comes through the letterbox, wondering where I have been. Well, BT, I've been burning all your software, that's where I've been. ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ PC Zone has nothing at all to do with Wireplay, before you people reading this are turned off buying the magazine. GO GET A COPY NOW!!! Wireplay is a trademark of British Telecommunications (I think), and think seriously before getting involved with them... BT AND Wireplay, that is ;-) Seeing as though trial time is over now, I would like to hear from other people who have had similar problems - those who are on with Euro 96, EF2000, as well as old trialists. ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________